Read the Resistance
Since last fall, the term “resistance” has been employed with increasing frequency and relevance. Today, resistance includes new social movements to address infringements on press freedom, the proliferation of bigotry, and the assault on facts, on arts funding, and on human rights, among other causes. But resistance has a long and storied history that is not narrowly defined—a history that lives on in the world’s literature.
With an eye to this wide-ranging history of resistance, PEN America is launching Read the Resistance, an online book club that highlights written works of and about acts of resistance. Each month, a renowned contemporary author will select a book that exemplifies resistance to them. Throughout the month, readers can discuss the text on Facebook where, at the end of the month, we’ll host a live conversation for readers to engage with the recommending authors.
We hope you’ll read along and join the discussion as we celebrate and learn from these great works of resistance.
What We're Reading
Read the Resistance, November 2018: American Hate
Join Fatima Farheen Mirza in conversation with Arjun Singh Sethi for a discussion about the book American Hate on November 27 via Facebook Live. More
Read the Resistance, September 2018: Hope in the Dark
Hope, Solnit reminds us, is not an emotion—it’s a way of engaging with the world, of embracing uncertainty and the tremendous opportunity there. More
Read the Resistance, July 2018: The Poet X
For this month of Read the Resistance, an online book club that highlights written works of and about resistance, we asked David Tomas Martinez, author of Hustle, to recommend a book that exemplifies… More
Read the Resistance, June 2018: Tell Me How It Ends
So why read Tell Me How it Ends? Let me quote its author: 'Because being aware of what is happening in our era and choosing to do nothing about… More
Read the Resistance, May 2018: Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?
Many of her characters are women living complicated lives with consciousness and courage and that to me seems one of the most essential forms of resistance. More
Read the Resistance, April 2018: The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a reminder of how the act of imagination is itself an act of resistance. The power to imagine a new world is the… More
Read the Resistance, March 2018: Sister Outsider
Audre Lorde inspired me to be far more aware of how I lived my life and how to think. The world grows smaller and better when we allow ourselves… More
Read the Resistance, February 2018: Wild Seed
More than any novel I’ve ever read, Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed examines power, what it means to wield it responsibly and what it means to resist it when it… More
Read the Resistance, January 2018: One Part Woman
Murugan writes about people who are on the margins, who are disenfranchised, and he has written widely about caste. Madhorubhagan, or One Part Woman, was written... More
Read the Resistance, November 2017: Ceremony
The story of war and its residual physical, mental, and emotional impact are written on the body of a man who is haunted by more than one culture, more… More
Read the Resistance, October 2017: Salvage the Bones
Esch and China, though battered and embattled, stand steady and brace themselves against the magnitude of brutal and unjust forces...This is a novel of survival, the bedrock of resistance. More
Read the Resistance, September 2017: Twitter and Tear Gas
Zeynep Tufekci gives us a compassionate and merciless tour of networked protest movements…essential reading for any dissident trying to maneuver in this new, uncertain, and dangerous world. More
Read the Resistance, August 2017: On Tyranny
Snyder has studied the past so we can understand the terrifying present…giving us necessary tools from history to chart a future that can make America great again—for everybody. More
Read the Resistance, July 2017: The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is a great novel of resistance by a woman who opposes the patriarchy, hypocrisy, and misogyny of her world with stubborn, mute, but unbending insistence. More